From: jeffthorpe@comcast.net (jeffthorpe)
Newsgroups: alt.home.repair misc.consumers.house
Subject: Replaceing well pump -- Help me I'm starting to smell
Date: 28 Jun 2004 17:44:57 -0700

Our water pressure was low yesterday and this morning we had none at
all (yes, I kinda smell from not having a shower).  My wife called a
plumber/well guy out to look into the problem and it seems our pump is
gone.  He's quoting us a price of $2200 to replace it.  We live in
Southern Maryland, not too far outside DC.  We built the house new
three years ago and I think the well is fairly deep, 300-500 feet I
think, I wanted them to go extra deep since there was a drought that
year and some of the neighbors 100' wells were running dry.  The pump
was probably a contractor grade machine and was a 1 hp, 5 gmp machine.
 I've done a little research on the net and think that price is kinda
high, although I understand the area of the country is a big
determining factor.  I'm assuming this job is beyond my ability to
handle as a DIY project even though I'm fairly handy......so I've left
a message with the well drilling service that initially drilled the
well and installed the pump to get a quote from them too.  My
questions are:

What's a realistic price?  I assume that since this system is so new I
won't need to replace anything other than the pump...so they'll have
to pull it, replace it, and drop it.

What brand of pump should I be looking for them to use as the
replacement?

Isn't this somewhat unusual for this pump to fail so quickly, the well
was dug and pump installed in Apr 2001?

Is there anything I should look for regarding the old pump and it's
condition?  The reason I ask this is when they initially drilled the
well they dug it in the wrong place (in the middle of the back yard
where the kids would be playing), even after I told the on site
supervisor they were in the wrong place.....so they had to cap that
one and dig another one in the right place.  I'm a cop and kind of
cynical  so I can't help but wonder if I got stuck with a used pump or
something like that in an effort to make back some of what they lost
by drilling two wells.